On Tue, Dec 12, 2023 at 1:58 PM Tim Daly <axiom...@gmail.com> wrote: > > This link raises the issue of developer liability, especially in the E.U. > https://blog.hansenpartnership.com/solving-the-looming-developer-liability-problem/
It's about a UK court case. UK has left EU a while ago :-) And the court case is by someone with very deep pockets suing people they allege have control over Bitcoin wallets or something. IMHO UK courts are willing to take any silly business case, you'd just have to pay, a lot... > > If the software provides a method of attacking some business > the developers might be liable for damages. it's like a robbed bank suing a gun manufacturer, demanding it provided a feature disabling its guns in the bank's buildings... > > One route, for example, might be to exploit the X11 or other socket-based > code to allow network attacks. The defensive measure would be to have a > cryptographic handshake between the interpreter and the X11 code. There > are many other exploit paths available. > > This is only one of the rising legal problems. Another one is that the E.U. > is debating the question of whether software requires a "bill of materials" > which tracks what software was / is used as part of the delivery. Once the legal system is broken, you are never safe, full stop. > > Tim > > > On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 2:40:05 PM UTC-5 Tim Daly wrote: >> >> I am not a lawyer either but as far as I understand it copyright law >> varies from country to country and is covered by treaty. All of that >> is "way above my pay grade". >> >> Despite having authored a reasonable bit of the code I claim no >> copyright. In the U.S. I believe authored works are "born copyrighted". >> >> I tried to be very careful about including any and all copyright text >> for any piece of software ever used. Most of the law is intended to >> allow people to sue. I don't want to play that game. Axiom trademark >> protection requirements are painful enough and make me look like >> "the bad guy" because I'm required to take action. Sigh. >> >> Lawyers have spent lifetimes arguing over a single copyright like >> GNU. I'm pretty sure I don't understand any of it. >> >> Ralf writes: >> "I would like that the years are specified clearly. For example, the >> last line in src/etc/copyright just says >> >> Portions Copyright (c) Renaud Rioboo and the University Paris 6. >> >> but give no starting and end year and no license part." >> >> Perhaps Renaud used some resources from his University >> such as a University computer. If so then the University Paris 6 >> probably requires their copyright to be stated. Check with your >> University legal department if you use their servers to host or >> develop code at the University. Using their resources makes >> them liable. >> >> In a copyright dispute the goal is to get money so the University >> is likely to be a party to a suit. When I worked at City College of >> New York I explicitly included language in my job description >> saying that the University had no claim to Axiom. I developed >> on my own equipment and time. I hosted axiom-developer.org >> on a server under my desk at home. I kept the same setup >> when I worked at CMU. >> >> I have no idea what French copyright law allows or requires. >> In the U.S. I believe there is no requirement for year notation. >> Also copyright in the U.S. extends from creation until >> 70 years beyond the death of the author. >> >> It seems to me the safest course of action is to treat any >> legal text anywhere as "binary code" and not try to interpret it, >> delete it, modify it, or bury it. I added the )copyright command. >> >> Just to see how bad things can get: >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SCO%E2%80%93Linux_disputes >> >> Tim >> >> >> On Friday, December 8, 2023 at 9:09:35 AM UTC-5 ra...@hemmecke.org wrote: >>> >>> On 12/8/23 14:39, Qian Yun wrote: >>> > I just realized that there is also this file: "src/etc/copyright". >>> >>> Pffff... >>> >>> As always, IANAL. Additionally I can only guess what "copyright" >>> actually means. German law distiguishes between "Urheberrecht" and >>> "Nutzungsrecht". The Urheberrecht basically says something about the >>> creator of some work, the Nutzungsrecht says something about what can be >>> done with the work. That looks like a relatively clear distinction. >>> So basically all contributors to FriCAS can count as "Urheber" (creator) >>> of the work (FriCAS) and by German law one cannot give the fact that >>> he/she is the "Urheber" (in other words no German can put something into >>> "public domain"). As the creator of some work one has the exclusive >>> "Nutzungsrecht" (right to use the work). By a license one can allow >>> others certain rights to use, distribute, copy (or whatever) the work. >>> >>> As far as I understand the american copyright is somewhat incompatible >>> with the above view. What one usually sees is a copyright note and at >>> the same time some text (list the BSD clauses) that say something about >>> what rights some (different from the original creators) person gets for >>> the "work". And that is called "LICENSE". Sigh! >>> >>> I think the way we do it now with having a LICENSE file at the root of >>> the repo and src/etc/copyright is OK for me, but I can also imagine that >>> we just have a COPYRIGHT file at the root that is somehow like >>> src/etc/copyright (i.e. with portions copyright messages and the >>> respective license that the original copyright holders distributed with >>> the software). (All other license and copyright files should be removed, >>> because they get included into COPYRIGHT.) However, I would like that >>> the years are specified clearly. For example, the last line in >>> src/etc/copyright just says >>> >>> Portions Copyright (c) Renaud Rioboo and the University Paris 6. >>> >>> but give no starting and end year and no license part. >>> >>> Ralf >>> > -- > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > "FriCAS - computer algebra system" group. > To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an > email to fricas-devel+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. > To view this discussion on the web visit > https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/fricas-devel/958b0d0b-a21f-4a68-8fc7-6e8c7dfbaa7an%40googlegroups.com. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "FriCAS - computer algebra system" group. 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